Defensive gap between Mitchell and George is huge. I am willing to say that Key is not quite as bad as numbers say, but when they are this bad it’s hard to ignore. George needs to prove his impact, or more importantly his lack of massive negative defensive impact. Tanking makes things blurry….we’ll see how next season goes.
You could maybe say that they are close offensively, but again it’s not really been proven out by impact metrics. I think there is a perception that Key is better passer/ball handler just based on assist numbers, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Mitchell really impacted his team’s TOV performance in a positive way whereas Key is the opposite.
With all that said, it is interesting to look back on where Mitchell was then and now. Mitchell was probably overrated at this time of his career and you could argue he was though the end of his Jazz career. Rudy was carrying so much more weight than him. I don’t think people consider Mitchell to be much different now than he was when he left Utah, but he’s actually made a massive jump since then. His defense has improved as has his efficiency and overall impact on both ends. I don’t think his improvement is recognized as much because he was overrated to start.
I think Mitchell was like top 25 when he was traded. Now I’d say he could be top 8 which is a massive jump. I’d be kind of surprised if Key sniffed where Don is now, but maybe a top 25-30 ish peak is within reach. I’d say his outcomes lie somewhere in between Lavine and Murray. Really comes to how much impact lies behind the nice counting stats. A non-tanking environment will be telling.
